By Dick Yarbrough
I have the greatest respect for the Georgia State Patrol. Theirs is a tough job with roughly 900 troopers available to cover a state of 59,500 square miles and deal with the kind of carnage they see almost daily on Georgia’s highways. If all of this isn’t difficult enough, now they are being required to enforce the so-called “Slow Poke” law. One trooper was quoted recently as saying not enough people are aware of the law. Consider this a public service announcement, dear reader: If you are going 70 miles per hour in the left lane — the maximum posted speed limit on our Interstates — and some Dale Earnhardt-wannabe comes flying up on your tail doing 80 mph (which I believe constitutes breaking the law. Please correct me if I am wrong) you must move over or be cited for driving the speed limit. I don’t blame the State Patrol for being required to enforce a law that encourages breaking the law. I blame the geniuses in the Legislature who passed it. ...

Maybe I should rethink my decision not to run for president of the United States. I see where former New York Gov. George Pataki has entered the Republican primary and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has indicated he will run, too. I would cream those guys. The same would be true of Donald Trump, if he and his bad hair decided to get in the race. And socialist Sen. Bernie

Sanders, of Vermont, who says he is running as a Democrat? Oh, please. He can’t be serious. He has the name recognition of a yard rake. If I change my mind, I promise that you will be the first to know. ...

Alas and alack, an ALEC ideologue is leaving town. Rep. Mark Hamilton (R-Cumming) has resigned from the General Assembly to take a new job in Tennessee. Hamilton pushed hard during the past legislative session for a bill that would allow tax dollars to be used to allow students to attend private schools or to be home schooled. This comes right out of the playbook of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group with a good idea — to promote the free-enterprise system — but so clumsy they make an ox look like a ballerina. ALEC is doing the cause of free enterprise more harm than good because of its secrecy, its ham-handed and devious tactics and its abysmal PR skills, aided and abetted by a group of gullible state legislators. This is truly a gang that can’t shoot straight. ...

OK, nobody’s perfect, although I come pretty darn close. A couple of weeks ago, when I publicly urged the Nobel Peace Laureates and Malfunction Junction, aka the City of Atlanta, to play nice with each other and end their spit fight over a proposed meeting of peace persons in the city, I identified Laura Seydel, who quit the organizing committee, as Ted Turner’s daughter-in-law. Actually, she is his daughter. I knew that. So why didn’t I say it? I wish I knew that. Even I don’t understand me sometimes. ...

Speaking of Ted Turner, a mile of a downtown Atlanta street has been renamed Ted Turner Drive, over the objections of local merchants and homeowners. The esteemed City Council of Atlanta told them in effect, “Who cares what you think? Move to Schenectady —wherever that is — if you don’t like it here.” Still, Turner deserves a mile of a street more than having had his name put on the Atlanta Braves baseball stadium. The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games built the facility for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. Turner did nothing to help the committee in its efforts. He even promoted a turkey called The Goodwill Games which was nothing more than Olympics Lite before it folded. When ACOG (of which I was a member) turned the stadium over to the Braves, the moguls at AOL/Time Warner who owned the team named it for Ted Turner. Nobody asked me, but I think Elmer Fudd Field would have been a much better choice. ...

Finally, the exquisite little Georgia Sea Grill on St. Simons Island has moved to a new location a few blocks from their original site. I understand the corn-fried shrimp are assuring each other that I will no longer be able to devour massive quantities of them because I won’t be able to find them. Foolish shrimp. You can run but you can’t hide.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at yarb2400@bellsouth.net; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139; online at dickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb

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